See this film: 8 1/2 at the Brattle

After seeing Federico Fellini at his most tragic in La Strada earlier this week, you can catch him at his most cynical, self-reflective, and satiric in 8-1/2 (1963; 2:30 + 5:15 + 8 pm). Marcello Mastroianni serves as Fellini's persona in this dreamlike portrait of a director losing his grip under the pressure of trying to come up with a new movie. Ragged on by hangers-on, his wife, and his mistress (the latter two played by Sandra Milo and Anouk Aimée, respectively - what a hard life!), he lapses into reveries of past loves and losses, of childhood memories, and adolescent fantasies and...that becomes his movie! The movie we're seeing! It screens Thursday, September 1 at the Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St, Cambridge | $10; $8 students, seniors | 617.876.6837 or brattlefilm.org.